Blue Willow Skies And Cricket Bats
by elizabethlives
Summary: Two Daughters, Two Fathers one message. "I wish you had been a boy" Myka/Helena
1. Chapter 1

Blue Willow Skies and Broken Cricket Bats

Rating: Pg-13

Pairing Myka/Helena (est. relationship)

Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Syfy.

Chapter 1

Most of the time Myka Bering was not much given to reflecting on the past. Though deeply intelligent she was much more of a doer. But then the package came. It was an innocuous enough package hard back book size, forwarded from Bering Books. Helena had brought it in two days ago and left it near her bedside table. Myka who was used to her father sending her books he thought she ought to read, didn't open it.

The next day Helena came into the room to say hello. As she bent to kiss Myka she noticed the package.

"Myka! Your parcel? You haven't opened it?"

"No"

"do you know what it is? Is that why you don't wish to open it?" Helena stood with her hip cocked, unsure. Myka smiled wanting to remove her uncertainty.

"I have a suspicion about what it is. Does that help you?"

Helena moved gracefully to sit on the bed beside her. "may I ask as to the nature of this suspicion?"

Myka took a deep breath. " I think its my father's book."

"oh? Your father writes?"

"he always wanted to- did you read the Eger Allen Poe case file?"

"of course"

"Then you know my family was being targeted"

"yes your father had the book."

"right. When we were trying to figure out something that would save him, he was dying, my mom told me about this book he had written. He'd told her to burn it but of course she hadn't."

"ah. Letters and manuscripts make trouble."

"like Dickens's desk drawers." Myka looked at her lover. "what became of yours?"

"hmm. Haven't the foggiest. How odd. Charles probably took them with him. After he died well-" she lifted her shoulders gracefully.

"How sad. We could get them back maybe. Do you think they are in the Vault?"

" I think not. I would have seen them."

"right. Of course." Myka approached the package as though it might bite her.. She lifted it and slit it open and lifted the book out. It was indeed a hardback book and Myka turned it over. A fleeting expression passed across her face like a cloud across the sun. Helena saw it and rose moving towards her "Myka?"

Silently Myka held up the book. It was a black and white photo of a willow outlined against a blue sky."

"Ah that's lovely. Did he decide on the artwork himself?"

"I don't know" Myka was still staring at the book as though it might jump up and kill her. Helena got up moving across the room to the door. "I shall take my leave?" The lilt at the end of her sentence made it clear she was conflicted. Myka looked up

"No it ok. You can stay" Myka folded her legs under her and sat down on the bed, her reading pose. Helena came behind her and sat down against the headboard

"Hmm sweetie" Myka slid down to rest her head against Helena's thigh. To be comfortable like this she had to curl her legs but she didn't mind.

"Myka"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to nap dear"

Myka twisted her head around "you've been working nights in your section again haven't you?"

Helena did not speak but her flushed face spoke for her.

"Helena!"

" I promise I'm not building a-

"Rocket, second time machine some sort of blowing up the world device" Myka finished for her.

"none of the above my sweet" Helena smiled.

"all right I'll let you sleep _Herbert_"

Helena rolled her eyes at the old joke. "ah, bookish women…"

"have more fun" Myka twisted her head to breath against her lover's center and chuckled when Helena shuddered. "you'd better get some sleep baby. The way this opening chapters going I'm going to need a good cry, a sparring match and sex in that order"

"hmm. The last two sound marvelous" Helena closed her eyes but not before she caught a glimpse of the first line:

"when the girl was born his first thought was fear"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_London 1882._

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Syfy.

A/n: Amy Catharine Robbins was a real person and was the "real" H.G. Wells's lover and later wife at about this period. (1882). She was called Jane by the family.

Fear. She sidled along London's busy though fare. The young woman didn't notice cradling her belly until she brushed up against another woman and they exchanged glances. Firmly Helena took her hands from her belly and forced herself to relax. At this stage, she reassured herself it would not harm her small passenger to be jostled just a little. She increased her pace, turning into the street where Charles lived. Coming up the steps she knocked and was unsurprised to find the door opened by Amy, Charles's lover and not a servant.

"Helena!"

"Hello Jane" Helena smiled "Where are you off to?"

"I'm off to picket with Eminaline"

" I enjoy Miss Parkenhurst's company myself" Helena smiled. Emmaline was a very fierce woman and Helena liked her.

Jane moved past her, back into the house and then paused.

"Helena. Why have you not joined us?"

" I support you of course in your cause. However I find myself unable to accompany you at the moment."

"Oh!" Jane smiled in understanding, ushering the other woman into the house. "That is wise indeed. It can get extremely rough. You wouldn't want to risk your child"

"Child?" at the sound of her brother's voice Helena smiled. He came around the corner from the study area holding a sheaf of papers. " I still say that we could structure the idea more as though it were a Roman Republic"

Helena responded, falling into the rhythm of collaborator as easily as breathing. "Well , I thought we had agreed doing that way would be-"

"Charles" Jane cut her off with a sharp look.

"Apologies, little sister" he came closer. "You are once again proof doctors know absolutely nothing."

"Ah, yes. My womb is very healthy as you see" she patted her belly and Jane laughed.

"I'm off."

"oh dear. Now I've offended you, Jane"

"Hardly" Jane came closer and embraced Helena from behind. "Find the wonder of the modern world for me" she strode off. Charles looked after her and Helena laughed. "Ah Charles you silly man. For all your boasting, how adorable you are in love"

"She is the most wonderful woman" He turned and she laughed again. "Oh Charles. You give me hope"

"Because most men are hopeless" he is grinning.

"Most men are- oh never mind." she turned away suddenly not in the mood for the old argument, or indeed, the old game.

"You know I merely jest, little sister" he came around and knelt near her feet, a gesture of intimacy that he did not usually indulge in. she looked up, surprised.

He said: " How do you feel?"

"Not unusual at the moment"

He nodded. "Shall I play the concerned elder brother and ask whom the responsible party might be?"

"No one of consequence. A mistake." she cradled herself again without thought.

"well that's a relief" he quipped. "might have been someone important ."

She laughed, but there was a blank behind her eyes that had not been there before. "Dear Charles. We should work now?"

"Of course" he picked up the sheaf of papers again. " I have questions for you as always.."

_Seven years earlier…_

The young man stared and fidgeted. This was difficult. He turned at a quick footfall to see his ten year old sister appear around the corner.

"Charles? Are you all right?" she stood in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.

"Little sister. I've broken it" he gestured to the toy train and the wheel lying beside it. "I'm too old for such things now, of course and so I was going to store it away-" he stopped as she bounded across the floor to drop down before the train. He watched her dark eyes dance over it. After a few moments she turned to him.

"I can mend it."

"Truly?" he knelt beside her.

"yes" she twisted, already absorbed in her task, and he followed her movement.

"What would you need-" he paused as another footfall came down the hallway and Joseph Wells came around the corner.

He addressed his son. "Charles"

"yes Father?" Charles darted a glace at Helena who was completely absorbed in her task quick fingers moving and speaking to the toy, asking how it was put together and receiving answers. This had always fascinated Charles for he had no such repore with mechanical things.

"Why are you allowing her to do that for you Charles?"

"Father, I-"

"Helena" she looked up, unseeing.

"Charles ought to do that. It'll be good for him" he looked down at his daughter, watching her nimble fingers. For a moment they all felt it, a palpable hesitation in Joseph. The relaxing of something within. Then the moment snapped and he spoke harshly.

"Helena. Get up"

She obeyed, leaping like a startled otter to Charles's side but not to hide behind him.

"Father" even at ten her voice was low pitched and cool especially when speaking to men.

"That is for men Helena. Not you. Leave it" he turned away abruptly and walked out, his shoulders hunched low.

Charles watched him go and then turned back to his sister. She was not sobbing or seeming particularly distressed by this outburst, but was staring closely after her father's retreating back.

"Helena" he said. She didn't move, still gazing after their father.

"He's frightened"

"What?" Charles stared at her.

"he's frightened Charles. He's frightened of me" she turned to face him and he met her dark gaze slightly unnerving in its intensity.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-_Present day_

_A/N the passage Myka quotes is from The sleeper Awakes. I don't own that nor do I own the characters they are the priority of the H.G. Wells estate and Syfy respectably. _

"Frightened of what? And how could you know that so young?" Myka scrunched up her nose and shook her head, confused. She shifted to lie next to her lover, lining up their bodies like cogs in a watch.

"Of me, I think" Helena shifted pulling her lover closer. She was monetarily distracted by her lovers eyes and the feeling of her sweater against her hands. Textures and sensations were still a bit much after so long in her blue prison.

Myka, sensing this, turned to her "You know I'd never have let you stay there. It was wrong. They were _using _you Helena. Even in the most horrible of prisons the inmates can choose their thoughts" She stroked the inventor's face gently.

Helena didn't respond. She was thinking of the images the Regents had conjured from her mind how she had closed her (eyes? mind? She was still unsure what to call her holographic self) trying to keep the images within. The sensation of those images being pulled from her had been somewhere between a violation and the feeling oddly of drowning. As though her thoughts were air. . That had almost broken her. Lying immobile in bronze she had at least controlled her thoughts, dark and repetitive though they had been.

"Helena?" Myka's voice brought her back to the present. "Don't do that, ok? Don't go were I can't follow you"

"I'm here, sweet" Helena smiled.

"Good" Myka turned away then back. "You didn't answer my question"

"I don't know how I knew. It was merely something I sensed"

"The shadow of his disapproval in the back of your mind" Myka was standing now and the words seemed to resonate from the ground rather then her mouth. Then she turned around and the illusion was broken

" I need a sparring match. If you don't want to I'll have to fight Pete."

"As much as I would enjoy seeing Agent Lattimer writhing in pain I shall gladly accept you."

"Helena. The two of you need to move past this."

"He was cruel. He walked through me!"

"You gave his girlfriend Lizze Borden's Compact"

"While under the influence of a artifact!"

"You will never convince him of that" They came down the B&B stairs and Leena, seeing the glow of mingled red and royal blue, smiled. "Hi Myka. Hi Helena"

"Hi Leena"

"Hello Leena"

"where are you two off to?"

"Sparring match" Myka gave her a quick smile.

As they got into the car to go to the gym, Helena turned to her lover. "You don't seem very distraught, my love if I may venture an opinion"

"Yeah well, it hasn't hit me yet"

"Ah. I see so you're plan is to 'hit' Helena raised her long fingers in air quotes, a gesture that felt utterly alien to her, "me before it hits you. Jolly good"

Myka snorted "We have got to update your slang, sweetie"

"All in good time, dear"

The patterned movements, the ritual, calmed the girl down all the fear could finally uncoil

In movement I found emotion's release

Each image flashed pat her and she dismissed it. Within the rhythm of this it didn't matter

_Tracy looking over her shoulder at me as she walks out the door to be with some boy_

Swish.

"_your father has his own way of doing this please Myka just-" the pain in her mother's eyes_

Swish.

_If I turn my head will he be there watching? If he is will he be approving or closed down lips in a thin line-_

"Myka"

Myka looked up as Helena's voice cut though her memory.

"Darling you've been staring at your shoes for twenty minutes. I am aware of great innovations in this century but I don't believe self-tying shoes is one of them"

"Sorry" Myka tied briskly and the two moved out into the room reserved for sparring.

"A penny for your thoughts. Or perhaps I should revise that vulgar cliché and say a shilling"

"You mean a pound. The money's changed." Myka emerged from the in suite bathroom wrapped in a green bathrobe. Helena had given up asking about Myka's aversion to nudity. Despite her attraction to her own gender she had never thought of nudity as sexual in and of itself.

"The sediment remains the same no matter the coinage."

"I don't know if I can articulate." Myka sat down wrapping her bathrobe tighter around her body. Helena moved away a little, answering Myka's unspoken request for space in which to expand her emotions. "Please attempt it?"

Myka answered instead with a question "Did you ever feel your father disliked you?"

Helena pondered. "Disliked? No. He had no idea what to do with me. As you might imagine I was not a typical Victorian young lady"

Myka was nodding her head. "My dad and I.. I had his love of books from the beginning. I wanted to know _everything. _he saw that hunger and it froze him. That hunger was.. unfeminine somehow. Tracy he could deal with her, her twittering laugh and her dresses, her boyfriends," Myka paused gulped "-girls were supposed to be like that. When I went into the Service he was proud. At least I think he was. Mom said he was. But I never heard it from _him" _she broke down fully, into the sort of sobs that come from deep within the gut. Helena moved closer, wrapping both her arms around Myka's shaking body. She did not speak. Then, as Myka's sobs slowed into ragged breathing:

"When I was twelve I found where my father had stored his cricket bat and ball. I was just messing about with it, I didn't recall expect to hit the ball with the bat I'd no experience after all. But by some lucky chance I did, a powerful swing and the ball sailed across the yard and over the railing into the street. I was horrified of course. Now I would have to race into the street and retrieve it. But before I could move my father was there and retrieved it."

Myka was sitting blot upright now, eyes fixed on Helena's face.

" The expression on his face was, to me at the time unreadable. It was only after I had a chi- her breath caught- "child of my own that I understood his look, that mingling of fear and pride. We stood in tableau for a minute and then he said-

"I wish you had been a boy" Myka's voice was clear and ringing as if reciting something from memory. Helena turned to her "How did you know that?"

Myka met her gaze. "my father used to say it."

The two women sat still for a moment then moved at the same instance as though choreographed, clinging to each other as if pulled together by a gravity only they could feel. Neither was certain who began the kiss only that it was deep and slow and when it broke, both women were smiling. "Baby" Myka whispered and stroked Helena's check.

" I love you so much my sweet. The moment I met you I knew we were bound"

Myka wiped her eyes then laughed. "The very moment? You mean when I was pointing a gun in your face?"

"Well perhaps a bit later. You understand the sentiment do you not?"

"Yes of course."

They shifted to lie down on the bed, twined around each other. Myka spoke softly:

"I am a lone wolf wandering though a world in which I have no part I am wifeless, childless.. Who is it that speaks of the childless as the dead twigs on the tree of Life? It is your world , you accept it you rejoice in it , it worms and supports and delights you. And for me? The whole world is the garment of my misery."

Helena smiled. " I wrote that, dear."

Myka grinned back. "I know." "Helena-"

"yes?"

"For all your- she paused-"_strangeness_ I love you. So much. The pain you must have felt. I can't ease that and I'm sorry. All I can do is be there when the darkness comes to push it back."

"you would do that?" Helena's eyes were like bruises dark and acing.

"I promise. I'll help you find light, no matter what it takes"

-end-


End file.
